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Nearly 2M-SF New Convention Center Opens

BOSTON-After four years of construction, the new Boston Convention & Exhibition Center opens its doors. The $800 million taxpayer financed facility struggled with cost overruns and a dearth of initial bookings as well as opposition to the project.

By Naomi Grossman | Updated on June 11, 2004

BOSTON-The new Boston Convention & Exhibition Center is officially open for business. The $800 million taxpayer financed facility struggled with cost overruns in its construction and a dearth of initial bookings as it began to come online in one of the country’s worst economies in years.

At 1.7 million sf the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority says in a release that the new center is New England’s largest enclosed man-made space and adds that the center fills a “critical need in Boston, which has been unable to compete for large trade shows and conventions due to a lack of space.”

Despite its size, the center had to contend with a vocal opposition that insisted that the city did not need a second convention center in addition to the John B. Hynes Veterans Memorial Convention Center, a smaller center that is located in the Back Bay. In addition, the development of the headquarters hotel for the convention center, which is considered crucial to the success of the convention center, was stymied by a lack of financing–which it finally secured a few weeks ago–and is now expected to open in the fall of 2005.

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